


Outside the World

by popering



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Accidental Drug Use, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Anniversary Grief, Cleaning, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, If You Squint - Freeform, Levi (Shingeki no Kyojin) Has OCD, Levi (Shingeki no Kyojin) and Cleaning, Smoking, eruri - Freeform, sorta - Freeform, this is less eruri h/c and more levi comforting himself in the presence of erwin, whose existence he also finds comforting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-10
Updated: 2020-07-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:54:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25192753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/popering/pseuds/popering
Summary: It’s been exactly two years since Farlan and Isabel died. It’s hard to take a break from existing, but Levi finds a way. Erwin’s there too.
Relationships: Levi/Erwin Smith
Comments: 2
Kudos: 76





	Outside the World

**Author's Note:**

> Please ignore any canon setting/timeline inconsistencies, I can’t be bothered to check or care.   
> Was feeling Bad the other day so I wrote this real quick to comfort myself lol, hope someone else enjoys it too.

Levi was having a shit day. That was why he’d taken a few hits of the hand-rolled cigarette a couple of recruits were passing around in the first place. Although, evidently, tobacco hadn’t been the only thing packed inside. Levi wasn’t normally someone who smoked, but he had occasionally bummed a cigarette or two off Farlan back in the underground on those days that were particularly unbearable. Like today. 

Today marked two years. 

Two years ago Levi had gotten out of bed with his heart simmering with a fierce but controlled rage and the stoic determination to do what he needed to to give himself and, more importantly, his friends a better life. He’d never forget how quickly that was all ripped away from him. 

Perhaps it was morbid, but he’d been fantasizing ever since the date of the expedition was announced back then that that would be the date on the right side of Erwin Smith’s gravestone. He never imagined that just a week later he’d be staring at that date on the gravestones of the only two people he ever really cared about. It had felt like a nightmare. 

He remembered the way he spiraled in the weeks and months afterward. His thoughts were consumed with the pointlessness of it all. Levi always imagined he would live and die within the confines of the underground. He’d made peace with that long before he met Farlan, so when he and Isabel had started talking about ways to get above ground, Levi was happy for them and kept his cynicism to himself. It didn’t seem like a real possibility, at least for him, but he’d be damned if he didn’t try for their sakes. So when Levi came back from his first expedition with only suffocating heartache, burning guilt, and the devastating sense of the futility of everything, it was no wonder he spent his nights pacing back and forth, wondering if six feet of dirt was warmer than the cold bed he never slept in anymore. 

Levi never believed they’d make it out of the underground. He wished he’d been right. But just thinking that felt like a betrayal to the friends he always thought of as family. For that alone, he knew he didn’t deserve to be here. The shame of it was crushing. 

Somehow he’d dragged his weary self through each and every arduous day and torturously long night after that with only the back of a man he despised to guide the way. Levi felt as if he was drowning. The waves of grief and anger and pain and loneliness would overwhelm him one after another for days on end. Then, just as he was starting to wonder how much more of it he could take, they would start to recede. They came and went often at first, leaving him heavy with exhaustion. As time crawled painstakingly by, however, he started to notice how they came less frequently and less intensely. Just as Levi gradually learned how to keep his head above water, he also learned there were hands to grab onto to help pull him out of harm’s way. More and more often, that hand happened to be Erwin’s. Somewhere along the way, Levi’s feelings had morphed silently from hatred to a grudging respect, and a growing admiration still after that. 

Nearly nine months afterward, Levi finally felt like his life had somewhat returned to normal. There would always be a small tear in his heart that ached if it was prodded too much, but he could bear it now. He had sewn it closed himself and learned how to live with it. 

That was why three months later he was surprised when he’d woken up in a cold sweat, lungs heaving, heart ready to beat out of his chest. He thought he was dying. He thought he deserved it. He had felt the approaching sense of dread for days. It had been one whole year, and nothing was the same. It would never be the same. Once again, Levi’s heart ached with regret and loneliness.

He missed them more than anything.

It was no different this year. 

He felt the slight head rush of nicotine almost right away. He’d thought the tobacco tasted a little earthier than he remembered, but then again he was no connoisseur. He took another long pull for the road and left the recruits to themselves, starting off towards the officers’ barracks. His head was pounding from all the noise he’d suffered through in the dining hall and he just wanted to be somewhere quiet.

It was on his way there that he noticed something was different. Oh. This was something Farlan had bummed off his friends on infrequent occasions that Levi had never particularly cared for. 

Now that he was alone, memories were flying through his head. He found his feelings about Erwin were more mixed than usual on a day like today, not that he showed it. He knew it was irrational. He trusted Erwin with his life, but he couldn’t help but dwell on his feelings of anguish and rage he’d experienced on that day, finally culminating in the tip of his blade pointed at the throat of the man that had caused it all. But that wasn’t really fair. After all, it was Levi who failed to protect them in the end. Left on their own. All because of his own arrogance. 

Levi felt something in his chest tighten, and suddenly the overwhelming guilt—of being too late, of not being there when they needed him, of being the only one to survive—outweighed the long-forgiven sense of betrayal he’d felt toward Erwin. It sat heavy in his heart, weighing on his shoulders, crushing him a little harder than he could normally bear. A cold loneliness rushed through him then. He’d been fighting a losing battle all day against these kinds of thoughts, busying himself with anything he could think to do; training, paperwork, losing his temper at recruits, cleaning. Anything to distract himself. It worked well for the most part, but he was exhausted. Drained. He just wanted to be somewhere quiet, but without that crippling feeling of desolation. Which was how he found himself with his hand on the doorknob to Erwin’s office.

It was locked.

No matter. Levi drifted further down the hall to his quarters and retrieved a small case of lockpicking tools. Erwin wouldn’t mind; Levi had asked him only a few hours ago if he could clean this space, having finished cleaning his own room and seeing as how some of the recruits had already spent the day cleaning the barracks, stables, kitchen, mess hall, and showers, there wasn’t much else left he could do. Erwin didn’t question him, he simply allowed it and Levi had picked the lock before the taller man could even reach for the key in his pocket. 

Levi swung the door open and immediately lit the lamps throughout the room. His foggy mind couldn’t bear to see the room empty, cold, and dark. Erwin would be there soon. He couldn’t take a damn break from his work if his life depended on it. 

For a moment Levi was glad the space was already clean, until he sat down in his usual seat across from Erwin’s desk and realized there was nothing to do while he waited. This was what he’d been trying to avoid all day—idleness. Although, he found his mind was starting to quiet more and more as his clearheadedness began to dissipate further. 

He found himself staring intently at the floor, elbows on knees, his face resting in his palms. He was spaced out, thinking intensely about parts of a conversation he’d had with Erwin and Hanji at dinner. Had Erwin implied he actually would  _ not _ be returning to his office when he said he had plans for the evening? It seemed unlikely, but Levi found himself unable to make that kind of judgement call at the moment. 

Frowning now, Levi’s vision refocused onto his boots. It was just his luck that a majority of the day had been filled with a steady stream of rain which, of course, also meant a steady stream of mud. Which was also why the recruits had been cleaning all day and, consequently, why Levi had been fighting to keep himself occupied. He realized, distantly, that he had forgotten to take his boots off at the door like he usually did when he settled into Erwin’s office for any length of time. He chided himself under his breath.

Well, it was one more thing to clean.

Levi pulled his boots off and was silently grateful that his socks had dried off since morning training. Otherwise, without boots, wearing wet socks would be unbearable. He would have to take them off and set them somewhere to dry, but his feet would still be damp and the dirt on the floor would cling to his skin. Except Levi had just swept and mopped the floors, so he supposed it would’ve been alright. Still though, he preferred to keep his bare feet from touching the floor if he could help it. 

It was then that he noticed just how much mud was caked on the soles of his shoes as well. Now that he had taken them off, he had nowhere to set them down to work on them without getting his pants, or Erwin’s desk, or the floor muddy as well. He looked over and noticed the trace amounts of dirt he had also tracked from the threshold to where he now sat. What a pain. Levi sighed and gripped his boots more tightly, watching as pieces of dried mud cracked and flaked off, falling unceremoniously to the floor. That was no good. 

Levi stood up, and after pacing in a small circle trying to decide where he could temporarily place the boots without causing a bigger mess, he elected to just take them with him, finding no suitable option. He kept his eyes on the brown leather as he strode to the bathroom, making sure no more mud fell onto the floor in transit. 

He returned once again with the boots and three towels. He had two full-sized bath towels and one hand towel he had struggled to wet in the sink while simultaneously holding everything else. He set the two folded ones on the floor by the desk and placed the muddy boots on top, then returned to where the mud had been tracked onto the floor. He got down on both knees and spot cleaned what he could with the wet rag. 

Levi found his mind surprisingly appeased when all visible traces of dirt disappeared from the floor. It was true he enjoyed cleaning, but he often found himself frustrated with his inability to stop until he met his own unrealistic standards. On a good day it took only a few extra minutes of his time to get the nagging in the back of his mind to cease. On a bad day, it often resulted with him vainly scrubbing the grime inside the oven or dismantling and deep-cleaning parts of machinery for hours on end without realizing, until Hanji or Erwin or Mike found him and dragged him away kicking and screaming. Considering he hadn’t used soap or bleach or any other kind of disinfectant, he was pleased to find there was nothing inside his head throwing a fit about how he needed to do it over again right now and properly this time. He  _ would  _ eventually have to come back and mop over it again but, for possibly the first time in his life, he felt it could wait until tomorrow. 

When Levi had finished, he found himself on the floor by the towels he had deposited. In order to keep the mess he was about to make from getting too unruly, he spread out both full-size towels on the floor. He placed his boots on one and sat himself on the other, that way he could work on the floor without getting it or himself dirty. As he settled, he suddenly felt uncomfortable being in full view of the door. He didn’t like the idea of someone besides Erwin potentially entering and finding him seated on the floor with a bunch of towels and mud scattered around. He could tolerate Erwin’s questions, but the thought of dealing with anyone else’s prying inquiries would do nothing but irritate him and further sour his mood. He pushed himself backwards and dragged the other towel with him until he was nestled in the corner of the office, blocked from view of the door by Erwin’s solid wooden desk. 

Much better. 

Erwin would still be able to see him with how tall the bastard was. As long as he worked quietly, it was unlikely anyone else who happened to come in would notice him, which was good as Levi also realized he’d forgotten to relock the door behind him. He didn’t care enough to rectify it—he just wanted to get started on his boots already. 

Levi picked up one of the leather shoes, crossed his legs, and got to work. He was hunched over, inspecting the pattern of cracks that had settled. The surface of his boot looked like a long dried up creek bed. He picked off a piece and was very satisfied to see the smooth brown leather underneath, completely unblemished, as if the mud had never been there at all. He picked off another small piece and deposited it on the towel. Again, the leather remained unharmed. 

He went through the motions over and over again, establishing a rhythm. Pick off a small flake of dried mud, put it down on the towel. Repeat. Pick off, put down, pick off, put down. He repeated it like a mantra in his head, laser-focused on these two simple tasks. 

Levi knew he could finish this quickly with a simple swipe of his hand over the surface of the boot, but he found the activity strangely calming. His breathing slowed and deepened as his body rocked gently with the motion of his arm. Pick off, put down. When was the last time he had cleaned something without a single feeling of apprehension? Levi couldn’t remember. 

This felt safe. For once today, Levi felt unbothered by the thoughts that had been plaguing him. His whole world had been reduced to the space of these two soft towels, his two boots, and the little pile of thin mud flakes in front of him. To him, those were the only things that existed right now. And, with his whereabouts currently unknown, he found the idea that he didn’t exist to anyone else in that moment oddly comforting. He could hurt no one, and no one could bother him. Erwin would eventually (hopefully) find him, but Levi was unconcerned. If he wanted to be outside the world for a few hours, he trusted Erwin to let him have that space. Levi finally felt like he could let his guard down. 

As Levi finished picking the mud off his right boot, he found himself conflicted about whether to move on to cleaning the bottom of his shoe or to start picking the mud off the surface of the left. Levi wasn’t the kind of person to half-do two things. He much preferred to wholly complete one thing at a time, but the idea of switching tasks seemed much more unpleasant, not to mention difficult, in his current state of mind. He grabbed the other boot. 

His intense focus never wavered. As he neared halfway done with the left boot, he heard soft footfalls approaching the door. Levi already knew it was him. Perhaps it was the cadence of his steps, or perhaps Levi just had a sense as he always seemed to have concerning Erwin. 

In Levi’s perfect bubble world, Erwin would come in, acknowledge Levi’s presence, maybe even speak to him occasionally—but not in a way that required Levi to respond—and then they could work on their separate tasks, together, quietly. That was all he really wanted in the moment. Silent understanding. Quiet companionship. He knew that was too much to hope for.

Erwin did not appear to fumble with the doorknob that was supposed to be locked. The door opened silently. Levi’s mop of black hair did not escape the Commander’s field of vision, just barely visible on the other side of his desk.

“Levi? I was wondering why the lights in my office were on,”

The other man didn’t respond. He didn’t even look up. Erwin took a step into the room.

“Wait.” Levi spoke up, “If your boots are muddy you should take them off.” he really didn’t want to spot clean the floor again right now. He was pleased by the prospect of more mud to pick off, “Bring them here,”

Erwin did as he was told.

“What are you doing?” he asked as Levi grabbed his shoes from him and set them on the towel.

“Cleaning my boots,” he didn’t have the energy to be sarcastic right now. 

“Is there a reason you’re doing that on the floor of my office?” It wasn’t accusatory.

Levi supposed there was, but once again he elected to say nothing. 

Erwin moved away from where Levi was sitting, much to his relief, and went to sit at his desk. Good. That’s where he was meant to be; outside of Levi’s own space but near enough to reach out to if need be. 

“Are you alright, Levi? You seem quiet,” and he had yet to even look up at him.

Levi simply hummed. He paused.

“I’m always quiet,” he replied.

“Not always,” Erwin chuckled, “You’re more quiet than usual,” he qualified. 

“Hmm. I smoked some of a cigarette, but I don’t think tobacco was the only thing inside,” Levi was surprised he had it in him to say so much and still feel comfortably separate from the outside world. 

“Ah, I see,” that explained a lot in Erwin’s mind. He pulled out a map from one of his desk drawers, “You don’t usually smoke tobacco either. I know this is a difficult time of year for you. Do you want to talk about it?”

Levi continued working on the boots as if he hadn’t even heard him. 

“Where were you?” Levi asked instead. Erwin let the question go. That was why Levi came to him; he understood.

“Mike had a few concerns about the upcoming expedition strategy. He had some wise suggestions, so I’m here to make a few revisions,” he offered amicably. 

Levi just nodded and kept working on the boots. They sat in comfortable silence together, working on their respective tasks with diligence. Erwin’s boots were less muddy than Levi’s had been and when he finished picking off the thin layer he moved to the soles of his own. He used a slim L-shaped rod from his lock-picking tools to scrape the more damp mud from in between the gridded lines of the rubber. He also found this extremely satisfying as the mud fell out neatly and easily. 

Midway through scraping the soles of his second boot, Levi noticed the fogginess in his head slowly fading. While he was grateful his ability to think was improving, he found the underlying anxiety of handling dirty things and not living up to his perfect standards was also starting to return. He picked up the pace and was suddenly glad that Erwin’s boots were less muddy than his. 

When he finished, Levi slipped his own boots back on his feet and placed Erwin’s carefully by the door. He gathered all the dirty towels and put them in a hamper to be washed. He returned to sit in front of Erwin’s desk, in the same chair he had originally occupied when he first got there. He yawned.

“You don’t have to stay, you know. Why don’t you go to bed?” Erwin suggested.

Levi was often tired. In fact, he was often exhausted and yet his body refused to sleep more than a few hours every night. That was why this arrangement worked well for them. Levi’s traitorous mind refused to be quiet, and Erwin was too absorbed in his work to ever go to bed at a reasonable time, so they often stayed up together, pushing papers and talking softly late into the night. 

While Levi, for once in his life, actually did feel the desire to go to bed, he expected this night to be no different from the others. Especially on a day like this, Levi did not expect to fall asleep easily or at all, and he could still feel that hollow loneliness waiting for him in the shadows. No, he would much rather stay here. 

“You can’t get rid of me that easily. What’ve you got for me?”

The side of Erwin’s mouth quirked up as he pulled out a clipboard and handed it over. 

“The Survey Corps has some expenditures that need balancing, if you’re up for it.”

“Sure thing.” Levi pulled a pen off Erwin’s desk and settled in for the night.

Hardly an hour later, Erwin looked up to see Levi sitting sideways in the armchair, legs dangling over the side, his head resting against the backrest and his mouth slightly open, snoring softly. Erwin didn’t have the heart to wake him, especially having never seen Levi able to fall asleep before the a.m. hours of the night. He stood quietly and took back the clipboard resting in his lap before gently laying his jacket over the sleeping man. He turned off all the lamps in the room except the one on his desk and went back to work, hoping that for once, the smaller man would finally be able to sleep through the night.

It was certainly worth a little extra paperwork. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading <3   
> Kudos and comments make my day


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